The present invention concerns the storage of small components, and in particular a storage unit intended to store a large number of components and to provide them all according to the same orientation.
The invention is particularly suitable for the storage of diodes of the kind whole electrodes are metal surfaces designed for direct soldering to a printed circuit board. These diodes consist of an insulating cylinder containing the semi-conductor crystal, terminated by two metal surfaces behaving as electrodes. A cylinder of this type is first of all bonded to a printed circuit board, then, by wave soldering, solidly attached to the board and connected to the circuit. Dimensions of such diodes are, for example, of the order of 3 mm in length and 1.5 mm diameter.
Throughout the various production, delivery and utilization stages of such components, component batches currently comprise thousands of components. These may be bulk stored, but, when required for use, it is necessary not only to align the cylinders, but also to test the conduction direction of the diodes, and turn over those whose conduction direction is incorrect. A supply device accomplishing these operations is excessively costly.
Therefore, it has been considered to provide these diodes in storage units, the most general model of which is a strip, perforated or not, into which the diodes are incorporated so that all follow a definite orientation. For example, the diodes can be crimped onto or encapsulated in the tape. Although this solution offers the advantage of avoiding the need of the expensive supply device mentioned above, cost is still high, and all the more so since the tape is not reusable. In fact, in addition to the cost of the tape, which is relatively high, insertion of the diodes in the tape and extraction prior to use must be provided for. Thus, this method is also excessively expensive for intermediate production storage purposes.